


we're here tonight; and that's enough

by Dresupi



Category: Thor (Movies), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Christmas Tree, F/M, Fade to Black, Fluff, Holidays, Humor, Kissing, Outdated Technology, Witness Protection, christmas vacation references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 04:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12951006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/pseuds/Dresupi
Summary: Darcy's been kind of down since she and Peter were dumped unceremoniously in a huge empty farmhouse as a part of a S.H.I.E.L.D witness relocation endeavor.Especially since she won't get to spend the holidays with her dad.Peter decides to take matters into his own hands and cheer Darcy up.





	we're here tonight; and that's enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShinpeiHolic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinpeiHolic/gifts).



> For heartsandwinter on tumblr. 
> 
> December 8 - ['Wonderful Christmas Time' - Paul McCartney](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9BZDpni56Y)
> 
> Super special thanks to thestanceyg and catrinasl for beta reading this for me!

Peter watched as Darcy slowly backed up the car and drove down the mega-long driveway towards the road.  

She hadn’t really been herself since they’d been tucked into this big echoey farmhouse.  With pretty much all of the people of interest having been relocated for safety reasons, it had been the only safehouse S.H.I.E.L.D could procure for them on such short notice.  

It was empty, devoid of most of the furniture or memories of anyone having lived there before.  

And today was December 24, approximately two weeks _later_ than the deadline Nick Fury had given them.  Not that being hidden away with Darcy wasn’t fun or anything, but it was kind of mind-numbing not knowing how long they’d be here, in this tiny town where no one knew them, but everyone looked the other way.  If Peter was going to call this town anything, he’d call it a fake.  He wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that the inhabitants were all on S.H.I.E.L.D’s payroll.

But anyway, Darcy was bummed.  She’d been looking forward to the holidays at her Dad’s, and instead she was stuck here with him.  

She’d told Peter all about it.  About how special her dad made the holidays every year.  About the truly Griswoldian level of exterior home decoration he did.  About the cookies, and the movie marathons, and the hot chocolate spiked with whiskey.  And Peter wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by Griswoldian—he still hadn’t seen ‘Christmas Vacation’—but the implication was that Mr. Lewis went beyond overboard and she loved it.  

Peter couldn’t really relate to the special family holiday traditions. His mom had kind of been run ragged most of the time.  And there was never enough money for gifts.  That was mostly his fault.  Okay, _completely_ his fault.  

He didn’t have a lot of special memories attached to this time of year like Darcy did.  So it didn’t bother him as much that they’d be spending the holidays cooped up in a farmhouse out in the middle of North Dakota.  What _did_ bother him was seeing Darcy’s bright and usually smiling face grow dimmer and dimmer until she basically looked like his mom did when she ran out of gin.  He wished it was as easy a fix as running down and nicking a bottle of something from the liquor store.  Not that it _wouldn’t_ help the situation, but he was under strict orders not to draw attention to them.  And some speedy speedster stealing Captain Morgan was definitely going to draw attention.

Plus, Darcy’s happiness was a little more difficult to procure than it was to procure _for_ some middle aged alky with too many kids in too much trouble.  His mom always insisted she wasn’t dependent on the sauce, but Peter never knew who she was defending herself from.  He was the _last_ person to judge.  He’d been living in her basement until he literally time traveled to the future on an errand for Dr. X and decided to stay.

But that was a lot of history and mom issues and this wasn’t about him.  It was about Darcy.  Because she was in hiding with him due to of a ton of shit that was out of her control.  And it wasn’t fair that she was going to have to miss her holiday with her dad.

It wasn’t fair that she was sad.  

And Peter didn’t want to think about why he cared so much, because that would mean addressing some very serious crush-like feelings he had on the S.H.I.E.L.D intern-turned-hacker and he wasn’t sure when or _if_ he’d be ready to address those feelings. So it was much easier to just… not.  And to try to make her smile because her smile lit up his entire life.  

He watched as the non-descript brown sedan they’d been issued drove down the dirt road towards town.

Once it was out of sight, he zipped upstairs to the attic.  

He’d given the whole place a thorough look when they’d gotten here.  And he was certain he’d seen some boxes labeled ‘X-Mas’ in the attic.

Sure enough, there they were.  There was a ball/knot of lights as big as his head, along with several boxes of twinkle lights that weren’t even open.  

There was another box labeled ‘ornaments’, and a tree stand, but no artificial tree.  

 _And_ a plastic bin full of vhs tapes.  It looked like pretty much all the movies Darcy had mentioned were there. And then some.  Whoever had been here before must have really enjoyed their holiday cinema time.   

He brought it all downstairs and mulled over the next part in his head. Lack of a tree was definitely a problem.  There wasn’t a tree lot nearby, and even if there was, the likelihood that there would be a tree that wasn’t half dead on the twenty-fourth of December was slim to none.  

He dashed outside, grabbing the axe from the chopping block before running towards the tree line.  

Finding a tree was easy enough, but chopping one down was a lot harder than he’d realized it would be.  Still, though.  It only took him about fifteen minutes and like… two ruined trees before he got the hang of it.  Maybe three.  

He brought it into the house, setting it up on the tree stand immediately.  It was a little bit… tippy though, so he had to run out to the shed for a hook and wire to attach it to the ceiling.  Having never set up a tree before, he wouldn’t have known to do that, but Darcy had shown him Youtube, so it was kind of easy to find an instructional video.  Seriously, the future (or he guessed he could call it the present now) was so much fun.

The lights were another problem.  He lost a little time untangling and testing out the one strand before deeming them too iffy and tossing them in the trash.  He cracked open one of the boxes of newish lights and tested those too..  

He wound them around the tree and then sat back to admire his handiwork.  

There were still boxes and boxes of unused lights on the sofa.  He glanced around the living room.  It was pretty bare in here.  Kind of depressing.  And sparsely furnished. Just an old TV (well, it looked new to him, but Darcy insisted that it was old) and a VCR on the floor.  There was a sofa, a fireplace and now the tree.  

He couldn’t exactly decorate the exterior of the safe house.  But he could definitely decorate in here.  

* * *

 

He’d just stapled the last strand of lights to the ceiling, zipping over to flip the switch on the surge protector to try them out, when Darcy opened the door and gasped.  

He turned to face her, the staple gun still in his hand and feeling a little like a deer in headlights.  

She blinked, the grocery bags slipping out of her hands which prompted him to grab them before they hit the floor.  

He deposited them safely in the kitchen and returned to the living room to shut the front door.  

She opened her mouth and closed it a few times before she finally spoke.  “You did _this_.”  

He shrugged, reaching up to rub the back of his neck.  “Yeah.  I mean… I couldn’t decorate outside.  And I have little to no idea what a ‘Griswoldian amount of lights’ means, but I kind of hope it means a _lot_ … and I found these in the attic, and I thought… if you couldn’t go have your awesome holiday with your dad, maybe we could have a mediocre one here with me… and —mpfph.”  

The rest of his rambling was cut short by a sudden, but very welcome kiss. Her lips met his and her gloved hands gripped at the front of his t-shirt.  His face was all warm, he was probably blushing. And Darcy was _kissing_ him and this totally wasn’t why he decorated, but he wasn’t about to stop her.

Except then he did, because he apparently hated himself and never wanted to be kissed by a pretty girl ever again.  

“Wait…” he mumbled, pulling back only slightly.  “Why’re you kissing me?”  

She shrugged.  “I dunno, dude.  You’re irresistible right now.”  

Tilting his head, he peered into her eyes.  “Right now, but not always?”  

“I mean, don’t get me wrong?  You’re yummy any day of the week, but I guess it must be the thoughtfulness… like… you did all this for me?”  She grinned, wider than he’d seen her grin in awhile.  She looked around the room, the lights were all twinkly and making her eyes glisten…

No… wait.  Those were tears.  The _tears_ were making her eyes glisten.  And she was still smiling.  But crying.  And looking at him and…  

He was the one who closed the distance this time, pressing his lips gently to hers, he reached up to drag his thumbs over her cheeks.  To wipe the tears away. “Hey… Darce… don’t cry…”  He kissed her again and again, punctuating after each word.  

“Happy tears…” she assured him, winding her arms around his neck before sealing her mouth over his once more. She broke off the kiss suddenly, contemplatively chewing on her bottom lip for a moment.  “But before we do _anything_ else, you need to see Christmas Vacation.”

“I found the tape up in the attic,” he offered, even though he was unwilling to let go of her just yet.  “We could watch it after?”  

She grinned.  “After what?” Her fingers toyed with the hair on the back of his head, scratching against his scalp in such a way that if he was sitting down, he’d be a purring mess in her lap.  

“I just figured you were still thanking me for the awesome decs.”  He smirked and she rose up on her tiptoes to kiss it off of him.  

“Thanking you shouldn’t take too long, right _Quicksilver_?” she asked, clearly teasing him.  

He zipped her over to the couch, falling onto it as she crawled into his lap.  “I dunno. It’s hard to tell, ‘cause sometimes?  I like to take my time.”  He ran his hands up either side of her waist, hauling her closer and kissing her in a way that he hoped would end the conversation.  

She squeaked into his mouth and rocked against him.  

They actually didn’t end up watching the movie that night.  Turned out, Peter had a LOT of time he wanted to take with Darcy.  But it was still just as funny over breakfast the next morning.  

**Author's Note:**

> xoxo! I love you guys! <3 Leave me some loveys in the comments, kay? <3


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